Wow.... very well-written. I like the mixing in of what was observed, the pointing to the incongruities between what was said verbally and what the body language and behavior betrayed...
I have 12 annotated pages here...
I teach English, I can't help it...
Some of my observations:
We are hearing that the numbers of these terrorists in our midst are in the tens....But the article would show differently--that there are hundreds of thousands who, if funded and given direction, would be honored to die for Islam and Osama bin Laden....
The need to for the military government of Pakistan to encourage the fight for Kashmir became clearer--it brings unity to the factions and supports the government--in some ways mirrored by our own willingness to put aside differences in the face of a common cause and enemy.... clearly they understand this kind of political gamesmanship.... I'm not sure if they are reading Machiavelli or "The Art of War"...
Professional jihadists need a war to survive.... the list of possible targets is long, and the radical view that it is just as important to attack these outside foes as struggle to find Allah within is telling...
I thought it was interesting that the mandrasa does not teach the students computers...but they maintain a web page. Obviously, the web page is not meant to attract students, but funding from those of means--those part of "wired" Western culture....
The mandrasa's view is that it is the Jews who are to blame echoes the words of Nazi Germany--a culture far removed yet strangely linked to these groups....
It was brought to my attention somewhere else that the targets in Israel are not temples or holy places but those places where American influence and capitalism are on display.... this fits with that explanation...
The mandrasa clearly thinks that military training--the use of weaponry--is the heart of terrorism. They are winning the hearts and minds--brainwashing these young boys--removing them from their families, cutting off knowledge of a larger world, limiting "education" to the rote memorization of a set of teachings.... No critical thinking skills are taught here--these young men would be ill-equipped to deal with the realities of life in a free, capitalist society. Notions of choice do not exist.
Telling that they are willing to proposition homosexual sex acts despite the punishment being death...
"Humanitarian" is defined here as providing food and shelter... As with these choices all over the world, people take what they feel is the best route overall--the sacrifice of a freer, individual-directed lifestyle in a camp where they would suffer far more hunger and poverty is a choice made by parents who see no other real alternatives... To change the way these mandrasas get power, the choices those who choose this must be redefined...
The two young boys are imitating what they have seen in their war games, whether they are instructed in how to use a gun or not...
They are incapable of reconciling how the Prophet and Osama can be contradictory--the human mind cannot continue a thought process that negates its very existance....to admit at this point that there are major flaws would be for the mind to admit it's reality never existed.... We see this on a smaller scale when we remove children from abusive situations where they cannot see the abuse...
I can't quite comprehend how if all things come from Allah, where do Jews come from? And Christians? And Hindus? Why could Allah make a nuclear weapon and not just make everyone a Muslim? This is not addressed in their teachings as described here...
The threat that all these young men would kill in the name of Osama bin Laden if he were merely captured and brought to justice in America points to the destruction of bin Laden as just the beginning of the violence ahead...
The nuclear weaponry as an object of hope and redemption is the work of those who have never seen the aftermath of Hiroshima... and a dangerous prospect for all our futures. For the military government to be so arrogantly certain it could not fall into the wrong hands assures me I won't sleep tonight...
The mandrasa, which does not train terrorists they say, shut its doors and sent the students to the front lines for the Taliban--that says more about their values than anything else...
There are clear contradictions between the General's views on how bin Laden's actions would make him a terrorist if he was involved in hijacking and views on how the hijacking of an Indian airliner is part of a jihad... Perhaps as a Westerner I won't ever see that distinction between jihad and terrorism, because to me the only difference is who sanctions the behavior....
Blaming a "breakaway faction" for the Indian airliner hijacking seems like a convenient way to not take responsibility for the actions of a group of people you have riled up and perhaps can no longer control...
Osama bin Ladin's removal of his own guards and replacement with Khalil's guards smacks of Stalin-esque paranoia...
The article does a great job of showing the priorities of all of these people: personal power, political power, the manipulation of public opinion all come before meeting basic needs of the followers.... superstition masquerades as medical care...
I like the thugs outside the religious holy place--adds real sanctity to the shrine inside...
The view of Muttawakil that some Afghans still like the Americans because the US helped in the war against the Soviets sounds like an admission that they have not mastered mind control--they cannot erase the past from the memory of the public... The whole thing is like a twisted version of 1984--it's the lack of technology that makes the fluidity of allies and enemies possible, although not complete....
Candy! Could there be any better proof of the youth here?
Mullah Muhammad teaches that which he does not understand to other children.... comprehension is never important--just rote memorization--programming....
Sorry... I take a lot of notes... I'll stop now.
